CHOP covered 8 square blocks
The Capitol Hill Occupied Protest occupied approximately 8 square blocks of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood around an abandoned police precinct.
Snapshot · Up First from NPR
How an anti-police violence protest ended in a teen’s death
Explore episode
Jun 14, 2026
Where this was said
Introduction: A Protest, a Death, and Six Years of Silence
At 1:53 · chapter starts 0:00
Ayesha Rascoe opens by transporting listeners back to the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd sent protest movements rippling across America. In Seattle, something extraordinary happened: a standoff with protesters escalated until police simply walked away from their own precinct, and protesters filled the vacuum by building CHOP — an Occupy-style autonomous zone complete with medical teams, art installations, and armed security. The experiment lasted three weeks before ending in gunfire. The victim was Antonio Mays Jr., a 16-year-old Black teenager from Southern California. The gunfire, Rascoe notes pointedly, came from people inside CHOP itself — the same people who had come to protest police violence. Six years later, nobody has been charged. Rascoe introduces the series as the work of NPR Embedded reporters Will James and Sydney Brownstone, who spent over a year investigating the case, and warns listeners the episode contains explicit language and the sound of gun violence.
A Black Teen Killed at the Anti-Police-Violence Protest
Antonio Mays Jr. was 16 years old when he traveled from Southern California to Seattle to join the racial justice movement. He arrived at CHOP — the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest — and was shot dead less than a week later by the protest's own armed security. Six years on, nobody has been charged.
Case unsolved after 6 years
Antonio Mays Jr.'s murder at CHOP remains unsolved six years after the shooting, with no arrests made.
The Morning After: A Reporter Walks Into a Crime Scene
Sydney Brownstone lived blocks from CHOP and was sent to report on the shooting the morning of June 29, 2020. Crossing onto 12th Avenue, the ordinary Capitol Hill neighborhood gave way to screaming protesters, blood-smeared cars, and clergy praying in the street — a crime scene dressed up as a protest.
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